Happy Hour (Toggle Event Example)

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In this example, we’ll create an event whose purpose is to activate at 4:00 pm weekdays, but not on weekends. The event needs to deactivate at 6:00 pm when happy hour is over, even though this is two hours not one as “hour” implies. Two changes are needed during happy hour: a slight increase in the audio volume and a logic output to turn on the happy hour light so patrons and staff know when it’s happy hour “officially.” We’ll setup the event, then create the preset contents, and finally link the two together.

Setup the toggle event

Create a new event – click the yellow underlined name to open the dialog and configure the settings.

Rename the event “Happy Hour” in the name field.

Set the Type – The default event type, below the name field, is already set to “Toggle” which is what we need for happy hour because it’s easily understood as an “on” & “off” action.

Recurrence – Weekly is the default and what we need, and to the right, keep the default of every “1” week. Then select Tuesday through Friday (Monday is selected by default) so each weekday is selected in yellow, but not Sunday and Saturday.

At the bottom, set the Start At time to 4:00:00 PM, and the End At time to 6:00:00 PM.

Now that we’re done configuring the event, let’s set up the preset and then test it all.

Create a new Happy Hour toggle preset, store the settings and link it to the Happy Hour event

Click the Presets button to open the All Presets window.

Select the toggle tab if it’s not showing already.

At the bottom of the dialog, click the button to create a new toggle preset.

Rename it by clicking the white and blue rename icon to the right of the yellow Preset (1) name.

Adjust the Level control to the slightly increased value, say, +6 dB above the typical volume. Use a dedicated Level block that is not a Level adjusted by the end user from a remote, for example. This will allow the two volumes to act independently. Thus, the staff can always turn things up or down as needed. Also, anything beyond a 6 dB jump in volume will be noticeable to patrons and staff (unless they started happy hour early). So go easy on the size of your level steps to avoid sudden and rude changes in volume.

note: To provide a Level whose typical value provides plus and minus 15 dB of range, drag a new Level block in place in your audio flow. Change its default value of 0 dB, to -15 dB. Then right click on the block (not the opened properties dialog) and select “Save block(s) to Baseline.” This stores a new default value of -15 dB for this block, instead of zero. This way, we can add 6 dB to this value and use it in our Happy Hour preset to increase the volume.

Drag the Level block’s preset icon onto the blue Add icon to the right of the Happy Hour preset in the All Presets dialog. The preset icon is a blue dice symbol that appears to any block’s upper right when the mouse is over the block, and a preset window is open. This stores the current Level’s value.

Link the event to the toggle preset

Link the preset to the HAL1x or HAL2’s output Relay:

On the far left of the Processing Workspace, select the Control tab.

Find the Relay Out – it has a gray rectangular icon to the left of it. Click the small white down arrow to the left to expand the view.

Rename one of the outputs by clicking the white and blue rename icon to the right of the yellow default name, Toggle (#).

Open the Relay Out dialog by clicking its yellow underlined name.

Check the box to enable the relay and turn on an externally connected AC relay that turns the Happy Hour lighted sign on.

Store the current “on” value of the Relay Out by dragging its preset icon onto the Happy Hour preset’s blue area. The blue dice symbol preset icon is on the far right of the Relay Out name in the Control tab – you may need to expand the palette’s size to the right to see it.

Next link the Happy Hour Event value to the Happy Hour Preset so that the time of day event turns the relay on and off and adjusts the volume:

In the All Presets dialog, to the right of the preset name, drag the Active chain symbol with the mouse onto the chain symbol that is to the right of the Happy Hour event name in the Event Manager dialog.

Test the Happy Hour event by viewing the event details

Click the Activate button to see both the Level value increase and the relay output turn on. Click Inactivate to verify they return to the previous setting.

Once the Halogen configuration file is applied to a live HAL, the time clock on the HAL will drive the Happy Hour event’s activation. And when the toggle Happy Hour event becomes active automatically, the toggle preset linked to the event also becomes active.